An Offer She Couldn't Refuse
by CrossesWithHonor
Summary: Did you ever wonder what would have happened if High Ridge had been just a hair more competent? This story is, as will become very obvious immediately, AU as of late in Ashes of Victory (and this story's opening scene is set shortly after the Cromarty assassination).


**An Offer She Couldn't Refuse**

Did you ever wonder what would have happened if High Ridge had been just a hair more competent? This story is, as will become very obvious immediately, AU as of late in _Ashes of Victory _(and this story's opening scene is set shortly after the Cromarty assassination). This story will (mostly) cover the same time period _as War of Honor, Crown of Slaves, Shadow of Saganami_, and several short stories (most notably _Service of the Sword_).

Note: I probably won't get back to this for a while; I'm currently working mostly on "Bridge Maintenance". But I thought some of you might like what I had so far...

**1**

"You wished to speak with me?" Admiral Hemphill asked. Michael Janvier, Baron High Ridge, was hardly a personal friend. Nor even much of a political ally; it was certainly true that she was largely sympathetic to the Conservative Association's nominal goals, but the Party's conduct for the last few years had driven her farther and farther to the margins of it. Especially after the disagreeable way she'd been forced into the middle of it. And even though she'd largely concentrated on her naval duties, she was quite sure the Association's leader was well aware of her views. Nonetheless, turning down an invitation from the presumptive new Prime Minister would have been a bit impolitic for a peer of the realm. Someone like Cathy Montaigne might have done it anyway, but her fire was reserved for arguing weapons and tactics with White Haven and his allies – even if he was presently making wonderful use of the new toys her people had given him.

"Yes, I did." He paused, considering. "You are aware that after learning that it would not be possible to form an interim unity government, Her Majesty has asked me to form a government?"

Sonja nodded.

"The nature of the coalition government will require that I nominate a candidate for First Lord of the Admiralty. Your cousin would normally be the obvious choice, but I'm informed that many of our senior flag officers have less than good relations with Sir Edward. I would be inclined to disregard that concern in peacetime, but however well things seem to be going right now, we are still at war with the Peeps." He continued.

_Which meant that High Ridge might be slightly less of an idiot than she generally thought. Or more probably, he's just inclined to throw Edward to the wolves now that he's become inconvenient._

"You have another candidate in mind, then?" She asked. It wouldn't do to ask straight out what she suspected.

"I realize your relations with the Association have been… strained… of late, but, yes, I was intending to ask if you would consider it." He said, confirming her suspicions.

"If I accept, you will keep Descroix and New Kiev from interfering with the Navy?" She said. Demanding virtual _carte blanche_ in naval affairs was a high asking price. But she was going to need it if she intended to take the job.

"That seems acceptable." He said.

[break]

"I appreciate the offer, Sonja, but why me?" James Webster asked.

"Honestly, Jim?" The new First Lord of the Admiralty said. "For all High Ridge said that he'd give me a free hand, there wasn't much doubt I'd have to replace most of the senior people. With a little bit of luck, they'll agree to pretend their new jobs are just part of our long-established policy of rotating senior admirals between HQ and field command – and it's purely coincidental that those field commands are going to be a long way from the home system. And you did a very good job while working for my cousin, so it would ruffle a lot fewer feathers than trying to keep Caparelli on."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm going to regret agreeing to this?" He said.

[break]

"My analysts don't believe this is a sincere offer, just an attempt to buy time to figure out how to counter our new systems. And although they don't give St. Just very good odds on surviving the year without Pierre, there's no telling what kind of government will eventually emerge. I can't recommend accepting this truce, not without more on the table than a simple cease fire in place." Admiral Hemphill told the Prime Minister two days after the note had arrived.

"But you don't think accepting it would put us at any real risk?"

"In the short term – the next year or two – we have enough of an edge with the new carriers and pod super dreadnoughts that I don't think they could possibly match us as long as we complete all the hulls under construction and continue upgrading our wall of battle at a slower rate after that. But only in the short term, Michael. The Havenites have made a dangerous amount of progress in getting their economic house in order, and they've proven they can match what we have close enough to trade quantity for quality before. Even including the entire alliance, and everything we've captured from them, they're still a lot bigger than we are. And there isn't anything in BuWeaps' pipeline that is as decisive as the multi-drive missiles, pod laying wallers, or the new LACs and carriers." She was not about to tell the Prime Minister anything about Apollo beyond its nominal goals. And she would not until it was ready to be deployed.

**2**

"Sometimes, it would be nice if the High Ridge government were entirely composed of idiots, not just mostly." Tom Theisman told his president.

"What do you mean?" Eloise Pritchart asked, genuinely concerned.

"Sonja Hemphill is more of an R&D type than a fleet commander, but she keeps refusing to let High Ridge do anything that would seriously weaken the Manties' Navy. And that is inconvenient, given what you're telling me about the state of our negotiations with them."

"Such as?"

"High Ridge asked her to reduce military spending, and suggested suspending new construction, which would have been nice, since they only had sixty SD(P)s completed and nearly a hundred under construction, as best we could tell, when High Ridge started working on a new naval budget. But she came back with a report showing the pod layers are less expensive to operate, that shutting down and restarting construction would be expensive and time-consuming if it had to be done, and that completing all in-progress construction would allow the navy to shut down the Grendelsbane satellite yard. So while they're not expanding their navy like Grayson still is, they are modernizing things up and down the line. They're retiring 3 old-style SDs for every 2 SD(P)s they put into service, and their real margin of superiority over us _increases_ every time they do that. At least, that's what's in the public budget.

"Admiral Hemphill maintains that given that we are still technically at war, R&D can't be cut much, and has to remain classified. And the Centrists and Crown Loyalists aren't fighting them at all on that part of the budget, so it's still there and still 'black'. Which means if we start shooting at each other again, they're probably going to have more new toys to throw at us."

"Lovely."

[break]

"Thank you for coming, Your Grace." Hemphill said. Officially, Baroness Low Delhi was having a simple dinner with Duchess Harrington. The First Lord of the Admiralty's official requests for Admiral Harrington would, of course, have gone through channels – at the very least, Jim Webster as First Space Lord would be talking to the Duchess, instead of her.

"You're welcome. I haven't had many opportunities to get out lately, save for official functions." Honor said, not too subtly reminding Hemphill that almost all of her close friends had been reassigned off-planet.

"Nor have I. Though actually having time to socialize can be as much of a curse as a blessing." Hemphill said. "I was hoping we could talk."

"I'm listening."

"I wanted you to know that although Admiral Webster and I may have reassigned some people for what are mostly political reasons – though in a lot of cases, they really were long overdue to be rotated back into a field command, if not necessarily one quite so far from the home system – that I'm planning on relying on you for more than your duties at the Island. I may need a 'back channel' to Her Majesty or Protector Benjamin in the not too distant future, especially if they intend to drag out this truce without a peace treaty indefinitely. And I was hoping I could use you as a sounding board for a few ideas."

"I believe I can do that."

"You know we're replacing our wallers and battle cruisers with ships with the new automation systems as rapidly as possible. We can almost man three new SD(P)s with the crew from one old battle cruiser, after all. But right now I'm not very happy with the battle cruisers we're building."

"I can see why. MDMs put them in a bit of an awkward spot."

"Yes. So right now we're building the _Black Rose_ class, mostly. Essentially it's an upgraded _Reliant_-class, like your old _Nike_; the biggest change is with the Mark 14 extended-range missile as its main armament. But it would still run into serious difficulties against a CA towing a few pods. Then we have a pod battle cruiser proposal; the _Agamemnon_ proposal is a nearly two megaton ship, which gives space for formidable active defenses and enough pods to be useful, but it's big enough that the planners wonder if we're better off just building a waller if we're going that big, and it's still not really tough enough to stand against massed MDM fire. We're building a squadron to try the concept out, but I suspect they're a transitional type at best. "

"I take it there's a third idea."

"Have you heard anything about the Mark 16 project?" Officially, Honor was not on the need-to-know list, but Sonja wouldn't be surprised if the Graysons or her old friends from the weapons development board had briefed her.

"My understanding was that it was still under development. But yes, I can see how a dual-drive, cruiser-weight missile – if it can meet the size and performance targets – could help solve the problem."

"If everything works, we'll have new classes for everything below the wall based around it."

"You're not going to try and squeeze a missile that big into a destroyer."

"No, but if everything on the Mark 16 project works, I suspect destroyers will go the way of the frigate. And our 'light cruisers' will be bigger than your second _Fearless_."

"So what is the problem?"

"I sold the Government on keeping the building programs active to reduce manpower requirements by deploying newer, less manpower-intensive ships – especially capital ships, which does include battle cruisers. If we stop building _Black Roses_ because they're going to be obsolete, the cost savings I've been projecting won't happen, and if we don't, I'm building rather expensive second-tier warships."

"I think I'd hedge and build some of the _Agamemnon_ s for now, then. They ought to have some value in hit-and-run operations even after the rest of the galaxy catches up to us. And while I can't think the passive defenses on any pod BC are going to be great, you ought to be able to fit a lot of counter-missile tubes and point defense on something that big."

"That's how my thinking was going, but I'm glad you agree."

**3**

"With all due respect to Countess Fraser, her analysis of the situation on Erewhon is wrong. They're getting progressively angrier we haven't honored the Cromarty government's agreement to help them deal with the Congo situation. And as touchy as the Erwehonese are, they could easily do something rash and dangerous to us if their relationship with us gets out of hand." Hemphill told the rest of the cabinet.

"Such as?" High Ridge asked.

"The Foreign Office's analysts project that if Erewhon breaks with us they'll be forced to realign with League, but my people at ONI think there's a very good chance they'll end up allied with Haven instead. And in a position to help them go a long way to making up the tech advantages we have."

"You know I've been in favor of doing as much as we can about the Congo problem for quite some time." New Kiev said. _Translation: Cathy Montaigne is getting my MPs in the Commons riled up._

"I assume you have a proposal?" The Prime Minister asked.

"I do." Admiral Hemphill said.

[break]

"And why do you think I'd do anything to help you, Marissa?" The Countess of Tor asked. She was not fond, to say the least, of the leader of Manticore's Liberal Party.

"If this works, we will finally be doing something for all the genetic slaves on Congo – which is not a small concern to you. Or to me, of course, which was why I supported this proposal enthusiastically. But also, the government will sponsor a motion to restore your seat in the Lords." Marissa Turner, Countess of New Kiev, said.

_She's got me dead to rights. There's absolutely no way I can turn this down._

"I'll talk to him. I can't guarantee he'll listen." Cathy said.

"I don't think he can pass this up any more than you can. Some of your… other associates… might not want to be seen working with us, but I believe he's more practical than that." New Kiev said. "And without him, this will be a fool's errand."

[break]

Michelle Henke had received notice of her promotion a week ago, though she did not have a new assignment yet. It seemed likely she was going to be commanding a heavy cruiser squadron or a battle cruiser division, but sometimes BuPers worked in mysterious ways. She'd hated to give up _Eddie_, even with her heavy cruiser sitting in the yards for refit. And she was a little concerned someone had decided giving the queen's cousin a star was a good way to distract Her Majesty from her differences with what was laughably called Elizabeth's government. Still, Jim Webster had called her to Admiralty House for a reason, and she couldn't think of any reason why the First Space Lord would want to speak to her officially except to talk about her next job.

What she hadn't expected was for Michael Oversteegen to be there, and sporting a junior grade Captain's insignia at that. The last time Michelle had checked, _Commander_ Oversteegen had a brand new light cruiser. She took a few seconds to contemplate what that probably meant, and…

"I see you know your new flag captain, Commodore Henke." Admiral Webster said.

"I was under the impression that flag officers had some discretion about these things. Even us lowly types with only a single star." Henke said.

"True, but since we didn't have any _qualified_ junior captains for _Gauntlet_, we decided to promote Commander Oversteegen." And _Gauntlet_ was the lead ship of a new class. They weren't all that different from her old _Edward Saganami_, save for the new extended-range missiles, but they were a bit bigger for more reasons than just larger offensive tubes and ammunition bunkerage. If she was getting a full squadron of them, that was a rather nice assignment for her first squadron command.

"And what do you want us to do with these lovely new toys?" Michelle asked.

[break]

W. E. B. du Havel could hardly have thought of anyone less likely to send any kind of proposal to him than the unlikely hodgepodge that was Manticore's current government. Any government had certain blind spots, and the factions of the Manticoran aristocracy that had produced their Prime Minister – what was his name, High Bridge or something like that – were hardly likely to seek out help from a Manpower slave turned political science professor.

"New Kiev didn't say it straight out, but this – like most of the more rational things coming out of the government – has Sonja Hemphill's fingerprints all over it." Cathy Motaigne told him.

"If you say so. I'm afraid I never got around to studying the particulars in Manticore in any detail. No real history of an exploited underclass, mostly stable. If you didn't figure so prominently in interstellar trade, and your monarchy wasn't so prominently involved with anti-genetic slavery efforts, I wouldn't even have a thousand-meter view." Web replied.

"There's no way High Ridge or Descroix or New Kiev would think of something like this – no matter how enthusiastically New Kiev would support it in public if _someone else_ proposed it. Stefan Young would have apoplexy. No, Hemphill is the only one in the government that might think of something like this, have enough clout to be listened to, and find arguments that would fly with the more isolationist parts of the Conservative Association and the Progressives."

"Then I expect she knows that I won't be able to do this without the Ballroom's cooperation."

"She must have told them; New Kiev told me that's fine as long as you can keep it deniable."


End file.
